the SSD Buyers Guide - click to see article
SSD buyers guide
the fastest SSDs - click to read article
the fastest SSDs
Clarifying SSD Pricing - where does all the money go? - click to read the article
SSD pricing ..

StorageSearch.com

enterprise buyers guides since 1991

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"leading the way to the new storage frontier"

Storage Resellers & VARs in the UK

There are over 100,000 storage resellers and distributors worldwide - but StorageSearch.com is not the place to find them.

Our theme is "leading the way to the new storage frontier" and the top 1,000 manufacturers and originating technology companies worldwide who might be involved with making that happen. That probably excludes all the VARs listed on this page - who appear here for various historic reasons because they were once featured in our news pages or articles etc (sometimes more than a decade ago.) This explanation is designed for the benefit of readers who came here from search-engines expecting to see something more like a list of 20,000 UK VARs.

UK readers click here for storage news
Megabyte's nephew Cheaperbyte joined
the sales department in a Reading based
storage VAR. He spent all day chirping
away to customers on his mobile.
user installable notebook SSDs  from RunCore - click for more info
user installable notebook SSDs
from RunCore
the SSD Heresies
flash SSD Jargon Explained
the Top 10 SSD Companies
Reaching for the petabyte SSD
3 Easy Ways to Enter the SSD Market
the Problem with Write IOPS - in flash SSDs
(the problem with) Selling revolutionary SSDs to technology laggards
network storage ad
click to see more info about Energy Data Storage 2010
Energy Data Storage 2010

by SMi Group

November 3 - 4, Kensington, London
This new event will form a platform for the
energy sector to discuss and compare their
unique digital data storage needs.
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Foremay describes secure erase options for SSDs

Editor:- August 20, 2010 - Foremay's CTO, Jack Winters presented a paper - Secure Erase Options for SSDs (pdf) - at the recent Flash Memory Summit.

The paper describes the need for SSD data purge and the 3 techniques which the company supports in its Avalanche Secure Erase Suite.

"In a regular SSD, deleting a file only removes its name from the directory or file table. User data remains until overwritten by new data. Even reformatting the SSD leaves data intact," said Jack Winters, CTO of Foremay, during the Flash Security workshop. "The Avalanche Secure Erase Suite employs various technologies to overwrite or destroy all user data in allocated blocks and file tables, as well as data in reallocated defective blocks." ...read the article (pdf)

Editor's comments:- other hardware data destruction technologies for SSDs are also available from other vendors.


SSD Bookmarks - from SandForce's CEO

Editor:- July 14, 2010 - StorageSearch.com today published SSD Bookmarks - suggested by Michael Raam, CEO SandForce.

It seems like nearly everyone in the SSD industry wants to know what SandForce is doing and thinking.

Michael Raam's suggestions include some great SSD resources which I had never seen before - which is why the SSD Bookmarks Series was created.

Do you want to understand more about the issues that drive SandForce's thinking? If so - read the article


survey shows most users think they can't afford zero loss disaster recovery

Editor:- June 9, 2010 - Axxana today published findings from a survey it funded to understand the role that cost plays in inhibiting user adoption of zero data loss disaster recovery solutions such as its own SSD based solutions.

'This survey has really shown how today's end users still feel that eliminating data loss though a disaster recovery strategy is still out of their budget,' said Eli Efrat, Axxana's CEO. 'Although cost is still an important consideration, the results support our strategy and I am confident that a year from now solutions such as our Phoenix System will have a much bigger foothold in the market because they make zero data loss DR an affordable option.' SSD Backup


Will hybrid SSD/HDD products succeed?

Editor:- May 14, 2010 - a new article in TheRegister.co.uk discusses prospects for the hybrid SSD/HDD market and SSD ASAPs.

It arose when I was having a discussion with their experienced storage commentator Chris Mellor. He asked what I thought about a recent web posting that Toshiba might be thinking of new hybrid SSD products.

As readers know I always have an opinion about everything - but as I thought the Toshiba idea was not a very good one - I didn't want to waste my time writing about it. Chris asked why I thought that - and as a result he has written a much better article than I would have done myself anyway. ...read the article


DCIG publishes buyers guide - midrange storage array market

Editor:- May 11, 2010 - DCIG has published the DCIG Midrange Array Buyer's Guide (100+ pages) which contains product information on over 70 different midrange arrays from 20 storage providers.

DCIG says the guide is intended to narrow down the playing field to develop a list of competitive products that have comparable features to meet specific application or business needs. Developed to be the go-to resource for IT professionals, the guide provides direct comparisons of storage systems classified as midrange arrays and delivers insight into the range of offerings available on the market.

New for 2010, the DCIG Midrange Array Buyer's Guide provides product comparisons among the widest range of storage array options and identifies the winners and losers across five categories, including FC/iSCSI, FC only, iSCSI only, hardware and software.

Pricing ranges from $5,000 for 1 print copy - upto $20,000 which includes:- internal distribution, 1 hour of analyst debriefing and marketing citation rights.


Nimbus nixes STEC SAS SSD costs in new iSCSI rackmount

Editor:- April 26, 2010 - Nimbus Data Systems today launched its S-class storage system - a 2U 10GbE rackmount SSD with 24 hot swappable internal 6Gbps SAS flash SSD blades in an 80W power footprint offering 5TB protected capacity for $39,995.

Powered by Nimbus' HALO storage OS the systems support iSCSI, NFS, and CIFS protocols and provide inline deduplication (typically 10 to 1), continuous local and remote replication capability in-the-box at no additional cost. Data protection inside the box ensures that no data is lost even with 2 simultaneous blade faults.

Editor's comments:- there has been a lack of market leadership in the NAS compatible rackmount SSD market. This new product from Nimbus shows what can be achieved with a true bottom up enterprise design - in the same way that for FC SAN connected applications you'd look at systems from Texas Memory Systems and in the PCIe connected rackmount SSD market you'd look at NextIO or at Violin Memory.

I spoke at length to Nimbus's CEO, Thomas Isakovich - about the new systems. He's been a network storage OS pioneer for 10 years (prior to Nimbus he founded TrueSAN) so I joked that - unlike many new SSD companies - at least this product wouldn't be surprised by applications doing the wrong type of R/W IOPS (different to those encountered in benchmark suites).

The 1st question I asked was about the storage blades. I had already guessed (and he confirmed) the interface was SAS. But the surprise came when I asked whose SSDs was he using?

Isakovich said Nimbus makes its own SSDs - and that while the company was talking to many SSD controller suppliers - it planned from the outset to change these suppliers for other best of breed alternatives as the market evolved. In this respect - Nimbus is different to most others in the NAS SSD space - because the company supplies the whole software stack from the choice of silicon up through the OS and into the network. (Editor's note:- in contrast competitor WhipTail Technologies' product is a complex integrated bundle which uses 3rd party COTS 2.5" SSDs, licenses the flash write attenuation software from EasyCo and licenses dedupe technology from Exar.)

I asked Isakovich does Nimbus use SLC or MLC? - he said the internal flash is Micron's "enterprise grade MLC" - which has 6x the endurance of standard MLC.

He explained that Nimbus is aiming to offer a competitively priced product (2.5TB model costs $24,995) but unlike other vendors they decided not to offer separate MLC or SLC versions. The argument being that once you sold a system to a customer - let's say a low cost MLC SSD for video streaming - you couldn't be sure that the customer might not redeploy that same system into a different application accelerating their database (which needs higher endurance). His thinking seems to be that once the SSD rack is out in the wild of the enterprise environment - it has to be tough enough to handle ALL enterprise applications.

The flash systems include 28% over-provisioning and write attenuation.

I asked about the size of the RAM cache - Isakovich said it's 48GB which puts it in the fat flash SSD class. Users do have options on how they can deploy this to tweak performance. Unlike SSD ASAPs - which are designed to accelerate hard disk arrays - the name of the game with the new Nimbus product line is to make it attractive for users to place all their critical IOPS intensive data into SSD.

And with this new product Nimbus is saying - they like the flexibility and features of SAS SSDs - but that doesn't mean to say the market has to pay STEC or Pliant prices.
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selected storage VARs in the UK
1st Computer Traders

ABC Data Recovery

ACAL Storage Networking

Ardenta

Axstor

Avnet

CMS Peripherals

COLT Telecom

Computacenter

Connexion Point

Consensys

Cristie Data Products

Databarracks

DataSafe Services

Data Duplication

Eurotech Computer Services

Evesham Technology

Future Storage

GE Access

G-Stor

Hammer Distribution

HarrierZeuros

Headway Technology Group

Ideal Hardware

Indecs Computers

InTechnology

JAD Logic

JPY

Kingswell

Latitude UK

MCE

Micro Peripherals

MTI (UK)

NCE Computer Group

PerfectBackup

Prob-Solve Solutions

Quadrant Storage Solutions

Reactive Data

Redstor

Sagitta Performance Systems

Selectronix

Selway Moore

Shoden Data Systems

Silicon Systems

SkyStorage

Solution Centre

Source Consulting

Sunbelt System Software

Transtec

Ultratec

Willow Starcom

Zycko
Targa Series 4 - 2.5 inch SCSI flash disk
Removable Military Solid State Disks
from Targa Systems
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SSD Pricing - where does all the money go?
SSDs are among the most expensive computer hardware products you will ever buy.

Understanding the factors which determine SSD costs is often a confusing and irritating process...
Clarifying SSD Pricing - where does all the money go? - click to read the article ...not made any easier when market prices for identical capacity SSDs can vary more than 100x to 1! Why is that? ...read the article
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What's the best / cheapest - PC SSD?
Editor:- I often get emails from readers which ask the above question.

An article on StorageSearch.com - called What's the best / cheapest PC SSD? - is my attempt to create a simple FAQs page - which answers the question...
click to read this article ...of why I can't answer your question - and follows on to pose some probing questions which you can ask yourself. ...read the article
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Top Storage Articles & Subjects - May 2010
  1. the SSD Buyers Guide
  2. the SSD Bookmarks
  3. War of the Disks: HDDs vs. Flash SSDs
  4. the Top 10 SSD OEMs
  5. SSD Myths and Legends - "write endurance"
  6. the Fastest SSDs
  7. PCIe SSD Market
  8. 2.5" SSD Market
  9. Hard Disk news & comment
  10. Disk to disk backup / VTL
  11. SSD news (all types)
  12. NAS, DAS or SAN?
  13. Flash Memory vs. Hard Disks - Which Will Win?
  14. A Storage Architecture Guide
  15. SSD Pricing
  16. 1.8" SSD Market
  17. RAM SSDs versus Flash SSDs - which is Best?
  18. 3.5" SSD Market
  19. What's the best PC SSD?
  20. SSD market history
  21. Are MLC SSDs Safe in Enterprise Apps?
  22. RAM SSD Market
  23. Storage Market Outlook to 2015
  24. SATA SSD Market
  25. the Benefits of SAS for External Subsystems
  26. SSD jargon
  27. NAS market news & directory
  28. SATA SSD directory
  29. the Problem with Write IOPS - in flash SSDs
  30. What's an SSD?
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more classic storage themes

Chips - storage processors etc

Data recovery

Cloud storage

Disk to disk backup

Disk sanitizers

Duplicators - HDD / SSD

Events

Fibre-channel HBAs

FireWire storage

Flash Memory

Hard disk drives

Industry trade associations

InfiniBand

Jargon - re RAID

Jargon - re flash SSD

Military storage

Online Backup

RAID systems

RAM

Record breaking storage

Reliability

Removable drives

SAS storage

SATA storage

SSDs

SSD controller chips & IP

Tape libraries

Test Equipment

USB storage

VC funds in storage
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